Greg was tapped out. He’d tried. He thought he could muster a second wind, some energy—any energy—but it was looking like a Nah, kid. He didn’t have it in him, nothing left in the tank. He was going to quit, break his word, go back on all his boasts and promises. Oh, God. How f***ing embarrassing.
There were going to be repercussions if he quit. He could picture them so easily:
Linda would be upset. She’d scream.
“I told you so!”
His kids would be disappointed.
“Whatever.” “Lame.”
His friends would laugh behind his back.
“What the hell was that idiot thinking?”
Roy, his brother, would be the worst, because Roy would try to make him feel better about it.
“Dude, you tried. That’s all that matters.”
But that wasn’t all that mattered. All that mattered was that Greg finish what he started. If he couldn’t stay inside this glass box suspended by a crane in the middle of the mall for a full month like he’d advertised, then the stunt was a fail. Worse, it would mean that Greg wasn’t the gifted magician he’d told everyone he was.
He was no f***ing Harry Houdini or even Lorenzo the Laotian, and he hated Lorenzo the Laotian. He thought Lorenzo the Laotian was a total hack. Lorenzo did basic escape techniques but dressed goth and acted like he was a magic devil or something. Shot lasers from his fingers. Flashy and dumb. That’s why Greg chose to do a simple, basic escape trick like surviving through something that seems, to the common man, utterly impossible.
He had underestimated the leg cramping, for sure. He didn’t love the half-assed patchy beard growing on his face. The food program was also not working; he was shitting and pissing more than he wanted. He had to pull out the black sheet and cover the glass walls of the box so the shoppers in the mall below didn’t see him take a shit or catch a glimpse of his dick. Then, of course, there was the lowering of the shit and piss bucket on a rope to remove his waste from the suspended cube. His brother Roy was tasked with the removal of the bucket’s contents. Roy had balked at the idea of handling Greg’s honey bucket but agreed to do it once Greg said he would pay him. Roy appreciated the value of a dollar. He always had. Greg naturally hated thinking about money. Greg was more of a dreamer.
The IllusionistWhen the idea first took hold in his brain, Greg felt it only right to tell his family before anyone else. Even though Linda and Greg were in the process of getting a divorce, they were technically still a family, so for now Greg would grant her the privilege of being one of the first to know about his exciting next chapter.
Greg sat before Linda and his two children, Max and Shanna, in the kitchen of the home where he used to live with them. Max was twelve, with a soft tire of kid fat around his waist. Shanna was eight, her glasses thick with fingerprint smudges on both lenses. Linda was obviously coming straight from the beautician’s, with her freshly cut bob or whatever the hell it was called—her new divorce haircut with weird highlights and sharp edges.
“You’re going to do what? You’re going to live in the mall?”
She was unimpressed. Angry, even.
“Well, the box I will place myself in will be suspended in the middle of the mall. I won’t be, like, living in the mall. I’ll be inside the box. A glass cube roughly the size of a refrigerator, big enough for me to sit up in or lie down in. The cube is hanging from a crane. So I’m not even touching the floor of the mall. I’ll be, like, floating in the mall is the more appropriate way to word it.”
“Floating in the mall. For a month? Why?”
“Because I’m gonna be a famous magician, Linda.”
“How is what you’re doing considered magic? You just sit in there for a month? Anyone can do that! That’s not even magic.”
“Well, that’s your opinion, and you’re wrong, too. So, how embarrassing for you. But to a lot of people, what I’m doing would be considered impressive.”
“And what exactly are you doing?”
“I’m going to survive, Linda. Against all odds, I’m going to do the impossible. And I’m doing it for the world to see. Thirty days. On full display for every single person that walks into Northwoods Mall. They’ll be able to watch and behold. Maybe even be inspired. You never know.”
“How will you eat?” asked his son.
“Good question, Max,” said Linda. “Bet you didn’t think about that, Greg. What are you gonna do about eating, Greg? You just gonna starve yourself in front of everyone too?”
“It is a good question, Max. Your mom is trying to weaponize and frame the question against me, but I’ll ignore her and answer your inquiry. Your curiosity is appreciated, my son. There will be limited food and water.”
“So you’ll have food? How’s that magic, then?” asked Linda.
“Limited amounts of food does not suddenly make it not magic, Linda. God, you sure as hell don’t know anything about magic, do you?”
“I guess not.”
“Well, roll your eyes and be dismissive all you want. I’m doing it. Thirty days. I’ll show you.”
14 days inFriday evening and the mall was packed with shoppers. Inside the glass box, Greg was trying to sleep, but he couldn’t. The ache in his lower back was brutal. He pretended to sleep because he didn’t want to make eye contact with any shoppers below. There was a fashion show or something down near the Candle Emporium. Seemed like there was a decent turnout.
Just as Greg had envisioned, the glass cube was suspended in midair with the use of a spider crane in the center of the mall—the same area where they staged Santa’s Workshop at Christmas. A prime location.
Greg was a little disappointed in the amount of attention he was getting. Some people literally walked past without even looking. Some people stopped and watched him, and more would, he was sure.
A young boy waiting for his mom outside of Casual Carol’s stared right at Greg, who watched the boy try to unpack what he was seeing. Greg knew that the boy was probably wondering: How is he doing this? This is UNREAL. Suspended in a box with barely any food and water?
Greg, understanding that in that moment it was his job to keep the illusion going, to floor this little motherf***er, ignored his back pain. He tried to make his eyes kind of spooky by not blinking, like he was in some heightened escape-artist-magician mind trance. The boy cocked his head. It’s working, Greg thought as he slowly waved at the boy with the tips of his fingers. This appeared to startle the boy, who quickly ran off to catch up with his mom. He tugged on her jacket and pointed to the floating cube, but his mom didn’t look and pulled him away. The boy looked over his shoulder at Greg one last time. Got him, thought Greg. Blew his little f***ing mind. This is what it’s all about.
• • •
A few weeks earlier, Greg and his friends, Chip, Deon, and Wheeler, were cruising through the marsh on a Carolina Skiff. It was Wheeler’s boat, so he sat behind the wheel, drinking a beer and playing music on his phone, his tan belly hanging over his bathing suit. Chip lathered zinc across the bridge of his nose, just under his reflective Oakleys. Deon fiddled with a tangled lure. Greg smiled as the sunshine and marsh air washed over him. It was time.
“So, I got something I need to confess to you boys. A change that I am about to go through.”
“Oh, cool, I was wondering when somebody I knew was gonna do this. A bunch of kids in my daughter’s school have. But nobody I personally know,” said Wheeler.
“What? No, Wheeler, that’s not what this is. I’m not changing that way. It’s something different.”
“You and Linda getting back together?” asked Deon.
“No. We’re still divorced. We’ll never be married again. That’s not the big news.”
“You’re moving to another state or something?” Chip wiped his greasy, suntan-lotioned hands on his swim trunks.
“No, I’m not moving. My kids still live here. I’m not just gonna move away. Jesus. Just . . . I’m not really looking for you guys to guess what it is. I’m trying to tell you what it is. It’s not a guessing conversation.”
“You have some kind of terminal sickness?” asked Wheeler.
“No. I’m not dying. Stop guessing! I’m going to go for it. Finally make the leap to be a full-time magician.”
Deon, Chip, and Wheeler were entirely quiet.
“That’s the thing I was going to tell you. The magician thing. That’s what you all were trying to guess at.”
“Got it,” said Wheeler.
“You know I’ve had a rough year. Going full magician seems like it could be the answer. Magic has always been a passion of mine, as you know.”
“I’ve never heard you talk about magic before,” said Deon.
Copyright © 2026 by Danny McBride. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
